


Scars

by jollywriter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 10:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14542860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollywriter/pseuds/jollywriter
Summary: Kara's having a bad night and Lena has a question she can't keep to herself.





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> WHO HERE IS READY TO SUFFER

Kara wasn’t suicidal. She’d been on earth a long time, she’d read a lot, heard a lot, talked down people who were at the edges of things. Sure, she could catch them if they fell but if they didn’t retreat willingly, they’d be up there again.

She knew what being suicidal meant. And whenever she squared up, that wasn’t what was on her mind.

The DEO was quiet this time of night. She sat in the bunker, sipped at a cup of orange juice through a bendy-straw. It was refreshing, when she was a kid she called it sunshine in a cup. It’d made Alex laugh. It was one of the first things Kara came to love about earth. Alex laughing.

She was still dusty from her fight with Reign. Lena was somewhere with the now-unconscious Sam, running more tests. Trying to help Reign.

Kara knew her pain, to be split down the middle like that. It was an agonizing sensation.

She sipped her juice. She heard heels approach. Rather, the sound drew close enough that she stopped ignoring it.

She always heard Lena pacing in her lab. Just sometimes Kara paid attention when the sound was closer. Kara looked up. Lena looked tired. Her hair was a little messier, her cheeks were flushed, and she could barely keep her eyes open.

“Hey,” Kara said.

“How are you holding up?” Lena asked. She had her arms crossed, one hand on her neck, lightly rubbing at a knot.

“I’m okay.” Kara said. She bobbed her hair. If she said it enough, it’d be true, right?

She hoped.

Lena didn’t buy it, Kara could tell with a look. But she didn’t call Kara out about it. Kara looked away.

She set her orange juice on the briefing table. Lena looked like she wanted to talk, Kara didn’t want to push but she did want to seem open to it.

“I have a question I want to ask you but I don’t know how to ask it gently.”

“I’m kinda tough,” Kara shrugged. “I can probably take it.”

Her mind whirled through a thousand different questions that Lena might ask, some good, most of them bad—

“Why do you want to die?” Lena blurted.

Kara flinched, “What?”

“Tonight, against Reign, you didn’t have your powers. That staff thing blunted them. And you didn’t back down! Why the hell would you do that?”

Kara stared. There were a lot of questions Lena could’ve asked and that was nowhere on Kara’s list.

“Um.” Kara said.

“And it’s not the first time. Alex told me about something you did in your first year as Supergirl, where you had no powers and a broken arm and yet you still confronted an armed gunman. That’s just nuts, Kara!”

“You ran towards a device that could kill hundreds, instead of fleeing with everyone else.” Kara said. “I don’t think you want to die.” She was groggy, her voice didn’t have any inflections in it.

Lena started to pace. “It’s a pattern,” Lena said. “I noticed a pattern of willfully endangering yourself. And I’m scared for you, Kara. Do I need to invent something to protect you? A device that shields you when you have no power? Surely there’s some sort of signature you emit when you’re fully empowered and I can program something stealthy to sit with your suit so you don’t notice it but—“

“Lena,” Kara said as gently as possible. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not!” Lena squeaked. “Do you know what happens if you die?”

“Alex protects you,” Kara said without hesitation. “Alex always protects. That’s what she does. I just try to make her job easier sometimes.”

“Kara,” Lena faced her. “Why do you want to die?”

Kara didn’t have a good answer so she started talking. “I’m the last Kryptonian. Kal-El doesn’t count, he’s an orphan from a world he can’t remember and a culture he’s never experienced. He learned some of the language by reading books. He’s never heard it spoken, certainly not in the dense atmosphere of Krypton. He doesn’t know the warmth of that red sun on his skin,” she sighed. “His connection to our culture is important, he is Kryptonian, but he doesn’t remember. And that’s worse. Because I’m all that’s left.”

Lena was silent, she had her hands to her mouth and her eyes were wide.

“I’m the only one who remembers, and the more I learn about what we did, the more I wonder if that’s one person too many. If Kryptonian history ended with me, is the world better? The universe?”

Kara sniffed, Lena approached, but she didn’t get too close.

“I don’t know, Lena,” Kara said. “My world died and I couldn’t save anyone. And,” she shuddered and took a slow breath and the words came pouring out of her in an unbidden rush, “I’m aware, constantly, of the people behind me. Every one. I can hear every heartbeat, I hear every cry, I hear every mumbled prayer. And who else is going to stand in front of the bully with a gun?”

She looked away.

“I have to stand up. Because if I don’t, then i disgrace the memory of my Aunt, and,” Kara sniffed. “If I don’t, then she died for nothing, and the last memory anyone ever has of a Kryptonian is of a coward.”

Lena closed the distance. She embraced Kara and held her tight. Kara shuddered and cried silently. 

“You are the bravest woman I’ve ever known,” Lena said. “You’re inspirational. And you mean so much to so many people.” Lena hesitated, “You mean so much to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a gifset of kara hurting but standing her ground and i'm like WELP TIME TO YELL ABOUT THIS so here we go.   
> come yell at me @ thejollywriter on tumblr.


End file.
